It's Orange this time. They're taking the spot that was once taken by a budget book store. I can't decide what's worse, having too many budget stores, or having too many phone stores. I think that brings the number - in a town centre with at the most 40 stores - to about 5. 1 in 8 of our stores are dedicated to selling mobile phones.

I don't like our selection of stores in Accrington. We have a M&S, a Woolworths, a Wilkinsons and a JJB Spots as our big four, with that planned massive Tesco and the current Asda and Aldi only 2 or 3 minutes away on foot. When you actually think about it hard, you realise that it isn't as bad as you see on the surface, but the vast multitude of budget stores really adds a shadyness to the town as a whole. The real crippling fact is that we have no bookstore whatsoever.

The problem is that I very much doubt that any of those budget stores - or the mobile phone stores - will be there after the end of this reccesion. And I somehow doubt that the shops that replace them will be any better.

About the Author

My name is Huw Dawson, and I am currently in my first year at Aberystwyth University studying International Politics and History. I'm an active member of the Liberal Democrats and so I tend to focus on that side of things in this blog. If you actually like this horrific rabble of text I call a blog, feel free to follow me on Twitter (Huw_Dawson) or even leave comments.